EMC World 2012: Big Data Is Changing Everything

The growth of centralized computing has led to a massive spike in the amount of data that businesses have collected over the past few years. At EMC's annual conference, the company's leaders highlight this fact as one that has the potential to change just about everything in IT over the coming years.

EMC World 2012

Data storage and cloud giant EMC held its annual conference in Las Vegas this past week, and while the company had an astonishing 42 new products to unveil, the bigger impact may be in the realization that big data is already in the process of changing the technology hierarchy.

According to an eWeek article, EMC CEO Joe Tucci's keynote address discussed the way technology has changed over the years, how change is one of the few constants in the industry, and how the era of big data is upon us. Recent estimates have at least 15 industries in the U.S. store, and they manage over 100 terabytes of data each; never mind that most enterprises expect a 40-percent or higher yearly growth rate in managed data.

The growth of the cloud is paramount for this shift in IT, as it allows for the collection of an unprecedented amount of information, and Tucci touched on how surveys showed that almost 80 percent of respondents have plans for both public and private clouds.

This data explosion has created a great need for data analytics, an area where Tucci notes that the "killer apps" are now all centered around. The presentation then went on to list how EMC's new offerings will deal with the new realities of the IT world, as many of the 42 new products and numerous upcoming projects center upon the storage, management, and analysis of enormous amounts of information.

The Advent of Data Scientists

At the same time that EMC noted that handling massive amounts of information was the key to the future in IT, the company also recognized the dearth of IT professionals who are able to effectively manage that amount of data.

As this IT Pro article discusses, the EMC COO also took the stage at EMC World 2012 to discuss how the company is working with universities to develop new programs that will provide students with the tools they need to help businesses with the cloud and big data solutions. The company is looking to help create what they call "data scientists" who will be able to assist companies by tackling big data problems while keeping an eye on business value.

EMC is far from the only company to recognize this skills gap. Major players like Fujitsu, IBM, and Teradata are currently working on smarter solutions that take some of the pressure off of big data developers, but in the end, businesses will still need someone who understands the big data landscape as a whole in order to derive the maximum amount of value from their collected data.

Midsize businesses, which often have bare-bones IT budgets and bare-bones IT staff numbers, need to be especially aware of the growing big data skills gap. By harnessing the power of the cloud, these businesses can amass remarkable amounts of data in a short amount of time, but without the IT skills needed to effectively manage this data, most of it could go to waste. Before that happens, IT managers would server their companies well by either finding a data expert now, training existing staff in big data solutions, or finding an analytics partner who, for a price, can fill that big data void.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Businessprogram, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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